


you are a child of the universe

by adreadfulidea



Category: Mad Men
Genre: F/M, Flower Children and City Cynics, Fluff and Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-15 23:35:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12331065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreadfulidea/pseuds/adreadfulidea
Summary: Nothing could be further from his business than Don’s wife leaving him; if anything, Ginsberg had simply shaken his head, shared a look with Stan. They had to deal with Don every day. Was it any wonder that Megan wanted a divorce? Ginsberg wanted a divorce, for fuck's sake.And she’d run off to be a hippie. Come on. That was hilarious.





	you are a child of the universe

**Author's Note:**

> Title from -- well. You can probably guess.

 

 

 

Ginsberg pulled up outside the farmhouse, which was old and grand in a way that made him think of Andrew Wyeth paintings. There was a rolling golden hill out back covered in waist high grass, or possibly wheat — he wasn’t close enough to be able to tell. The house was white, or it had been before age stripped most of the paint off and left bleached and exposed wood behind. It had a large porch and an ornate red door. He went up and knocked on it.

A longhair with a beard halfway down his chest answered. He wore a denim vest with a bunch of anti-war pins in it and there was a dandelion tucked behind his ear. “Hey, man,” he said, and threw his arms around Ginsberg in a hug, which was the last thing Ginsberg expected and also the last thing he wanted.

“ _What_ ,” he said, and staggered backwards, halfway down the porch steps. The guy just kept beaming.

“All creatures of the universe are welcome here,” he said. “Come on in, brother.”

“What are you _on_?” Ginsberg asked.

“Mostly hashish,” a voice said. It belonged to Megan, who stepped out around him, grinning. “They’re smoking it inside. I don’t suppose you’d want some?”

He drew himself up. “I don’t do drugs.”

“Okay,” she said, looking amused. Grizzly Adams by way of Berkley wandered back into the house bellowing something about Megan’s friend being here. Like they had been expecting him.

Megan leaned against the railing, the wind blowing her hair around. He had the odd thought that it was the first time he’d ever seen her without makeup. She was always real dolled up at work, back when she’d been there. But she was dressed very simply, in jeans and a green sweater that looked like something a college kid would wear.

“So what are you doing all the way out here?” she asked. “Decide to turn on, tune in and drop out?”

She didn’t understand that he was here for her. Ginsberg paused, unsure of how to proceed. Someone craftier than he was could have figured out how to use her ignorance, but he was who he was. And anyway, lying made him feel guilty. So he told the truth.

“Don sent me,” he said. “He wants you to come back.”

Megan’s face darkened. “Fuck you,” she said, and charged back towards the house.

Ginsberg scrambled up the steps. He managed to get a foot in the door before she could slam it shut on him. “Wait,” he begged. “Megan, wait. Just hear me out, okay?”

 “Why should I?” she demanded. It was a reasonable question. Nothing could be further from his business than Don’s wife leaving him; if anything, Ginsberg had simply shaken his head, shared a look with Stan. They had to deal with Don every day. Was it any wonder that Megan wanted a divorce? Ginsberg wanted a divorce, for fuck's sake.

And she’d run off to be a hippie. Come on. That was hilarious.

But Don wanted her back, and fucking Don always got what he wanted, didn’t he? So here he stood, peering through a crack in the door at Megan’s red and angry face, pleading with another man’s wife to come back to him. He should have become a butcher like Morris wanted.

“It’s my job,” he said. “I can’t get fired, no one else wants me. Please, Megan. Just give me a few minutes. Let me make my case and then I’ll go.”

“But why did he send _you_?” she asked.

“Because Peggy’s out for a few days and Stan laughed at him.”

“I meant why didn’t he come _himself_ , Michael!” she yelled.

“None of your friends would talk to him,” he said. “I had to promise I would only relay the message, that he just wanted to let you know he missed you —”

“Did he say that?”

“What?”

“Did he say he missed me,” she said. “Did he tell you he loved me?”

“I —” Ginsberg stuttered. “Uh, not — not exactly —”

Megan opened the door wide enough for him to duck inside. “What an incredible offer,” she said. “Can’t you tell he’s an adman? He puts more effort into a pitch for fucking ketchup.”

“Then call him,” said Ginsberg. “Talk to him yourself. It’s not easy for a man to express how he really feels to another man.”

Megan crossed her arms. She looked at him through narrowed eyes. “You are so full of shit,” she said. “You don’t believe a word you’re saying, do you?”

“I’m trying to do my job.”

“You write copy,” she said. “So I guess you are well versed in the art of bullshit.”

“Oh, but it was all fine and dandy when you were doing it,” he shot back. She glared at him. He glared at her. The hippie wandered back into the room, flanked by a couple of girls.

“Hey man,” he said. “You staying? The girls made some soup.”

Ginsberg looked at Megan. Her jaw was tense. Her entire demeanor said: I don’t _think_ so. It was as good as a dare.

“Course I am,” he said. “All creatures of the universe are welcome here, right?”

 

 

They put him in a room upstairs, one with an adjoining bath and one of those old claw foot tubs in it. He couldn’t tell how many bedrooms the house had, walking past in the hallway, but there were a lot. Row upon row of doors. He wondered how many of those golden fields outside belonged to the house. It must have been one of those places owned by the rich and populated by exploited servants.

He got in the tub, because why not. The water was nice and warm, and he was just leaning back and closing his eyes when Megan banged into the room.

“Holy _fuck_ ,” he said, flailing halfway out of the water before panicking and diving back down. He sank in up to his neck, his hands covering the relevant bits, and peered over the edge of the tub and into the bedroom with wide, terrified eyes. Megan didn’t give a shit. She threw herself onto the bed — in full view of the bathroom and therefore his shame — and lit up a cigarette.

“What the hell are you doing in here?” he asked. “I’m _nake_ —” He couldn’t even say it. His face had gone bright red.

She turned eyes on him that contained nothing but contempt. “It’s my room, you idiot. They think we’re together.”

He had to get the door between them closed. It was imperative. She was _watching_ him. He also couldn’t reach it, not even by sticking his leg out of the tub and trying to nudge it with his foot.

“Well, can you give me a minute alone?” he demanded. Almost there — no — not quite — “I’m in the bath and —” his heel grazing the wood, barely — “this isn’t appropriate —” almost, _almost_ —

“Oh, for Christ’s _sake_ ,” she snapped, lunged off the bed and slammed the door shut herself.

That night, lying in bed together because there was nowhere else for him to sleep, he tried to explain himself.

“I’m not on Don’s side,” he said. “It’s just that he’ll kill me if I go back without you.”

“Then die,” she said.

He sighed. “Megan,” he said. “Come on.”

“Don’t act like you’re some big reasonable man and I’m a hysterical little woman,” she said. “I’ll make you sleep on the floor.”

“I’m not acting like anything,” he said. “I’m only saying this is awkward for everyone concerned.”

The bedside clock ticked away. Megan went quiet for long enough that he thought she might have gone to sleep. “Then why do it?” she asked. “Why not quit?”

“Quit?”

“Do you really want to be Don’s errand boy forever?” she said. “Because you will. That’s how he treats people. Do something else. Something really creative, really satisfying. Work you could be proud of. You’re a writer, aren’t you?”

But he wasn’t, not the way she meant. Oh, he had ideas — he was good at telling stories — but he knew no one would want to read anything he had the urge to write down. It would be too dark, too weird, too unconcerned with the kinds of things that successful novelists liked. Rich people and their eternal malaise or whatever. It wouldn’t be sellable.

“I am proud of my work,” he said. “I’m really good at it.”

“Being good at something isn’t the same as being proud of it.”

It wasn’t, but he couldn’t afford to give quarter. She was starting to make too much sense. He might end up agreeing with her. And then where would he be?

“It’s a job,” he said. “I said I was gonna do it and so I’m gonna do it. I’m not a quitter.”

“Oh,” she said. “But I am?” Which he hadn’t said, or meant. “Fine. I don’t care: I’m a quitter. I quit my marriage and I quit advertising. I quit when things don’t work; I don’t see why not. Catch me banging my head against a brick wall, would you. Frankly I should have done it sooner.”

“What about acting?”

“Don took that from me,” she said. “I’d still be an actress if not for him.”

Ginsberg was lying on his side, facing the bedside table. It was a farmhouse on a commune in the middle of nowhere but there was still a bedside table. It had roses painted on it. The clock said 2:00 in the morning, and then as the hand clicked over, 2:01.

“Why here?” he asked. “This doesn’t seem like your scene.” Megan was a dyed in the wool city kid, a woman who could probably run in high heels and had only experienced the countryside via school field trips. He couldn’t even picture her camping. And she hadn’t adopted some kind of half-baked counterculture philosophy; she looked and sounded like herself. “Why not go back to Montreal?”

“God,” she said. “Why would I do that? And have to deal with my parents? No. I want to have some _fun_ , Michael. I’m going to laugh and get high and screw whoever I want. I’m going to be relaxed for the first time in years. And I’m not going to feel bad about any of it. Or let any middle-aged drunks interfere with my good time.”

“I’m not middle-aged or a drunk.”

“I didn’t mean you.”

He snorted. “Get high and screw whoever you want. Some mission statement. I think you’re just trying to shock me.”

“Don’t knock it ‘till you’ve tried it.”

He burrowed deeper into the blankets, but only because it was chilly. Really. “Okay.”

Megan caught on to what he was doing. She peeled the blanket back and peered into his face. He tried to get it back but she wouldn’t let go. “Come on,” she said. “Haven’t you ever had a lost weekend?”

“Nope.”

“Not even a little? No girl you met in a party in the village —”

“No.”

“— going home in last night’s clothes —”

“I said no, alright?” he snapped. “I’m not proud of it. It’s just the way things are.”

“No girls at all?”

He didn’t say anything, but he was sure his expression betrayed him.

“It’s not a permanent condition,” she said, at first reasonably, and then decided she was going to make fun of him instead. She slid her foot up the back of his calf. “I could help you out. Then you’ll _really_ have a story to bring back to Don.”

She was grinning wickedly, enjoying herself.

He rolled over. Looked her in the eye.

“Okay,” he said.

The smile fell from her face. She yanked the blankets up to her neck and turned over. “You asshole,” she said.

“You started it.”

“Your mustache makes you look like a sad clown.”

Ginsberg tried to think of a similar insult to lob back at her but there was nothing. Her looks were unassailable. “What are you, five?” he asked instead. He moved to face the clock again, feeling faintly smug about the whole thing. She waited for him to close his eyes and then took advantage of his momentary lapse in attention to shove him _off the fucking bed._

“Megan!” he shouted, or squawked, and hit the floor with a thud. It was cold and unwelcoming.

“What?” she asked. “It’s my damn bed. I didn’t invite you up here.”

She pulled the blankets up over her head. In a fit of rage and possibly insanity, he yanked them off her. Right down to the floor where he was.

“Hey!” she yelled, popping up, her hands balled into fists. “Those are _my_ blankets!”

Ginsberg was in the process of wrapping himself up like a mummy so she couldn’t get them back. Only his head was poking out. “No, they aren’t,” he said. “Everything is owned communally here.” It was petty and fucking ridiculous. It felt great.

She huffed out an angry breath and slammed herself back down to the mattress so hard it shook. “I hope Don fires you,” she said, and turned out the light.

 

 

He had a nightmare that night, as he often did when sleeping in an unfamiliar place. But he never got to finish it, because Megan woke him up by jabbing her finger into his spine. She’d gotten down on the floor with him.

“What’s the matter with you?” she was demanding. “You were making weird noises. They were like sex noises.”

“Why are you like this?” he asked. “And no, they weren’t.”

“Okay,” she said. “But they were still weird. What’s going on?”

It wasn’t any of her business, but it was the middle of the night and so his defences were down. “A bad dream,” he said. “I have them sometimes.”

“What kind of bad dream?”

“It’s — about when I was a kid.” That was as detailed as he was going to get on that particular subject. She didn’t know about any of it; not where he was born, not what happened to his parents, not how he came to be with Morris. Not all the times he had stared at the tattoo on his father’s arm as though hypnotized, trying to make out the blurred numbers. When he was very young he had once asked if his was on the inside. Morris hadn’t known what to say.

Megan frowned. “Oh,” she said. And then, unexpectedly: “Are you alright? You want a glass of water or anything?”

“No,” he said, after a minute. “I have them all the time. There’s no cause for concern, doctor. Go back to bed.”

She tucked her hair behind her ears. “Well,” she said. “Just thought I’d ask.” She looked back towards the stripped bed. Which had a coat on it. Which she had been sleeping under. Because he was an asshole.

Fuck.

“Here,” he said, and unfolded his blanket nest so that she could climb in. They didn’t bother getting back on the bed. She fell asleep with her cold feet pressed against the back of his calves.

 

 

He woke up alone, though, and found Megan in the living room making out with some guy.

He was blond and muscular, whoever he was, and that was the only distinctive feature Ginsberg could make out since they were attached at the face. It made him blush for some goddamned reason. And he wanted to run over and scold her and say “you’re a married woman!” like someone might in a really old movie. And he wanted to leave, to hop in his rental car and drive back to the city because this was so far above his pay grade it was on the fucking moon.

And he kind of — he wanted — to maybe keep looking. A little.

“Like what you see?” someone asked, and he nearly jumped out of his skin.

“ _Who_?” he said. “No! I — gross. Like what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s okay,” the hippie girl said. She had hair down to her elbows, reddish-brown. “There’s no judgement here. No jealousy. Only open doors, and love.”

She put her hand on his arm, very significantly. “There’s more privacy upstairs,” she said, and it took him a minute to catch on. Maybe it should have made him feel special, or attractive, but it didn’t. She hadn’t even asked his name. He felt put out by that and then felt stupid for being put out. Wasn’t he being offered what men always wanted? Sex, no strings attached?

Was he a prude if he said no?

“I’m gonna go find some breakfast,” he said. There were cornflakes in the kitchen, and a working fridge with milk in it. He came back in with a bowl to find that the entertainment, so to speak, had arrived.

He was young and black and staggeringly handsome in a movie-star way, all square jaw and squared shoulders. But he wasn’t dressed like any man Ginsberg had ever met. No, this mirage from the desert had shown up to a hippie joint in head to toe leopard print. Presumably not from a real leopard, because Ginsberg was pretty sure that was illegal now, but nonetheless. He was wearing a coat with a wide collar, bell bottoms, and a hat like a bucket turned upside down. No one else reacted in any special way, which made Ginsberg briefly wonder if he was having a minor hallucination.

The guy walked into the center of the room like he was entering a spotlight. He looked around him, lips pursed. “What a _dump_ ,” he announced.

Nobody responded to that either. “Just a little Bette,” he said, his hands spread out like a borscht belt comedian. “No takers? Anyone know the next line?”

“Uh,” Ginsberg said. Now he was being looked at, which made him remember his own state of undress, his bedhead and wrinkled undershirt. “Don’t start hating it until it’s paid for. Or something. Right?”

He got a blinding smile in return. “Exactly,” he said. “Well thank god somebody here knows the classics. I’m Francis, by the way. I can also do Joan if pressed. And you?”

“Can I do Joan?”

“No, sweetheart,” he said. “What’s your name?”

Ginsberg glanced at the surrounding audience to see if anyone was going to start trouble, because that was exactly the sort of thing people started trouble over. And hippies weren’t as open minded as they pretended to be. Not the men. Men were so — orgies and casual sex and open marriages were all fine, sure, as long as it was only men and women matched up. Ginsberg didn’t — he just didn’t trust them, that was all. He didn’t know any of them.

But no one did. Someone put on a record. Jefferson Airplane. “Michael,” he said, over the music.

“Another classic,” Francis said.

Ginsberg went red to the roots of his hair. He couldn’t control himself. A girl had come in with Francis — he only noticed her now, having had his focus drawn by the more obvious spectacle. She was wearing a short swingy dress, the kind the girls at work favored now, and had her hair tied back in a low ponytail. She bore witness to their exchange.

“Got your claws in already?” she asked, an eyebrow raised, as she passed by Francis.

“Harpy,” he retorted. Then he was all smiles again. “Michael. Now, tell me there’s some more of that cereal in the kitchen. I’m starving and Mary refused to pay for so much as a hamburger on the way up.”

“Do I look like your mother?” Mary called back. She was embracing a girl she clearly knew and must have been visiting; they were giggling and jumping up and down like kids.

“Yeah,” said Ginsberg. “I think so. Unless someone ate it. I mean, they probably didn’t. I got this five minutes ago.”

“Great,” said Francis. “Hope it’s as good as it looks.”

Ginsberg dropped his spoon back into the bowl he was holding. It landed with a splash and slowly disappeared beneath the milk. He looked over at Megan after Francis left. She met his eye and smirked.

 

 

He tried to sneak away to go into town later that day. He needed to buy a toothbrush, some underwear, maybe a couple of clean shirts. He hadn’t expected to be staying long and so he was low on supplies. And he didn’t know how long he _could_ stay. Exactly how much effort did Don expect him to expend on bring Megan back? What had he told the rest of the office regarding Ginsberg’s absence? Not the truth.

He started the car up. The engine coughed and the seats were cold. The sky had been overcast for days but it had not yet rained, a fall gloom that promised winter. He considered going home. Just saying the hell with it, making some excuse to Don. Or telling him the truth: your wife doesn’t want you anymore.

What the hell did he owe Don Draper, anyway?

The car door opened and he jumped. He’d forgotten to lock it. Already his city instincts were fading, apparently.

It was Megan. She climbed into the passenger’s seat and slammed the door behind her. “Where are we going?” she asked.

He didn’t bother asking her to get out. If anything it was better she was with him; he had thought if she realized he was gone she would leave too, hitchhike to Canada or California or something crazy. She seemed capable of it. And then he would never find her again.

“Town,” he said. “You know the way?”

She directed him out onto the highway, rolled down the window and lit a cigarette. She parted her lips and exhaled a long plume of smoke.

“You ever eat?” he asked. “All I see you doing is sucking on those things.”

“Actress’s curse,” she said, waving it around.

“That’s not good for you,” he said. “You should have some breakfast. Or lunch. Or whatever time it is.” His watch had stopped again. He hated that. Made him feel like he was floating in space.

“So buy me some,” she said, and probably didn’t expect him to agree.

“Fine,” he said. “What do you feel like? Chinese?”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” she said, amused. “There isn’t going to be a Chinese restaurant.”

“Then what?” he asked, persisting. “Pancakes?”

She looked at him for a long time and then smiled slowly. “Pancakes would be nice.”

“Okay,” he said. “Good.”

“It’s a date.”

“It is not a date.”

“It is.”

“No.”

He turned on the radio but it would only pick up static. Megan smoked her cigarette down to the filter and then dropped it out the window. “You ever think of quitting?” he asked. “That stuff’ll kill you. My Pop used to smoke but the doctor told him he’d have a heart attack so he gave it up.”

Megan scratched her nose absently. “I haven’t smoked for that long. I only started because Don did.”

“Because of Don?”

“Every time we went out he would go out for a smoke,” she said. “At dinner or whatever. He would be out there _forever_. And I thought — I thought he was talking to other women, maybe. So I just. I decided I’d go out with him, and steal a smoke off him. Because we were out on a date, we were supposed to be spending time together!”

The more Ginsberg heard about what being married to Don was like, the less he wanted Megan to go back. He had the crazy urge to offer to drive her somewhere, anywhere at all, just so she could get away. If he followed that thought it was going to lead him straight to Mexico. And what the hell would he look like in Mexico.

“That’s not right,” he said, surprising himself and probably her. “You shouldn’t have had to follow him around like a puppy.”

“He was the puppy,” she said. “And I was the one making sure he wasn’t piddling in the corner.”

“You mean —”

“He was cheating, Michael,” she said, her voice tired and flat. “A lot.”

Silence fell over the car. He drummed his fingertips on the steering wheel. “Maybe I oughta buy you a drink to go with those pancakes.”

Megan smiled. “That would be a start.” She took her cigarettes out of her pocket, opened and closed them. She bit her lip. And then she tossed them out the window.

“Fuck Don!” she yelled after them. “Fuck Don Draper! He’s not giving me lung cancer, too!”

“For god’s _sake_ get your head back in the car,” Ginsberg said. “Didn’t you ever watch those educational reels about losing an arm?”

She plopped back into her seat, looking sideways and grinning at him. His own mouth kept twitching against the laughter he wouldn’t let out. “Stop it,” he said.

“Stop what?”

“You know what,” he said. “I’m trying to drive here. I can’t have you falling out of the car.”

“Awww,” she said. “I didn’t know you cared.” Their eyes met, briefly, and he looked sharply away. She didn’t.

 

 

He did buy her pancakes, but not a drink since they couldn’t find a liquor store that was open. She went with him to get his supplies and kept making him try on different shirts. He didn’t know why; it was farm country, and in this town and at this season being in the men’s department meant flannel and more flannel. Still, she kept passing things over the top of the stall. “Let me see,” she would say, tapping on the door until he did.

 

 

“Hi,” Francis said, giving him a little wave. He was wearing a purple shirt with a lot of lace at the collar, which for him seemed subdued.

They were standing on the roof of the house. You had to come up through a little trap door in the attic. It was a dark, cool night and the sky was full of stars.

“Sorry,” said Ginsberg. “Someone told me there was a telescope up here. I didn’t know it was already, uh. Occupied.”

“I’m always up for company,” Francis said. He was smoking a joint, which he removed from his mouth in order to look down at it distastefully. “I’d offer you some, but this is ditch weed at best.”

“It’s okay,” Ginsberg said. “I don’t smoke.” He stuffed his hands in his coat pocket and walked over to the edge. There was a railing around it, wrought iron like a fireplace poker. “People here are very generous. With the drugs.”

“They have a philosophy of communal ownership,” said Francis. “Which is easy when nobody has anything.”

Ginsberg frowned. Then he looked over. “That mean I should have been locking my bedroom door?”

Francis laughed. He threw what remained of the joint over the railing. “Probably.” He really was incredibly handsome, with a lean angular face that could have come out of an ad. It was at odds with the way he dressed, the frills and the animal print. Which was a nice contrast, actually. Like that painting thing Stan was always going on about. Chiaroscuro.

“Did I come on too strong, earlier?” Francis asked, and every nerve in Ginsberg’s body decided to fire off at once, confounding him completely.

“W-What?” he stammered. “It’s not like you — wait, does that mean — you actually want —”

“Calm down, sweetheart,” he said, gently. “I’m just trying to get feedback on my techniques. I do tend to be a bit obvious.”

“That’s not bad,” Ginsberg said. He raised his hands and dropped them back down, unsure of what gesture to make. “I guess I think it’s pretty brave. Most guys — they can’t do what you’re doing. They don’t have the guts.” Would he have been able to say any of this, he wondered, if there were witnesses? If Stan was there, or any of the guys from work? Or his father? He shrugged his shoulders, and looked down at his feet. “I don’t.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Francis said, grandly. “I didn’t come out of a box like this. It took years. I had to work.”

“How’d you know?” Ginsberg asked.

“That I liked men?”

“That I did,” Ginsberg said. And there it was. He’d said it out loud, and the sky hadn’t cracked open or anything. They were only words after all.

Francis drifted over towards the telescope. He spun it in a circle and tilted his chin up. “Oh, there are tells. A certain limpness in the wrist, a sway to the walk — I’m _kidding_. You were staring at me when I came in. And not the way everyone else was. Also you knew that Bette line by heart so the odds were automatically fifty-fifty at least.”

“That easy, huh?” he said. “I thought I was better at hiding it.”

“Why hide anything?” Francis asked. “How are you supposed to meet your people if they don’t know who you are?”

“My father says I get myself in trouble,” Ginsberg said.

“Yeah,” said Francis. “Mine, too.”

They smiled at each other. Ginsberg shuffled his feet, but he didn’t feel as awkward as he thought he would have.

“You do understand I’m cruising you, right?” Francis asked.

“Jesus Christ,” Ginsberg said.

Francis laughed again. He had a big laugh, kind of wild, his shoulders shaking with it. “So? Yay or nay?”

“It’s complicated,” Ginsberg said.

“You’re with that girl,” he said. “The one with the dark hair.”

Megan was down in the backyard, dancing around a bonfire with a bunch of other girls. They’d looked like witches, their shadowy silhouettes straight out of a Puritan’s nightmare. Someone had been playing the drums.

“No,” he said. “I mean not exactly. I came here for her, but we aren’t — she’s married to my boss.”

Francis raised an eyebrow. “Michael. I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you.”

Ginsberg didn’t correct him. “Well,” he said. “You just met me. How could you know?” He walked over to the telescope and looked through it. The stars swelled and expanded, balls of soft light. But they were no closer, and he didn’t know any of their names.

“Perseus and Cassiopeia are up,” Francis said. “Guiding all the old sailors home.” Ginsberg glanced back over in surprise. “I was in the Navy, Michael,” Francis said dryly. “Don’t judge by appearances.”

 

 

The bedroom door was closed when he got back to it. There was clearly a lot of activity happening behind it. He could hear the moaning and squeaking bedsprings halfway down the hall.

He turned away, hand over his face in embarrassment, only to run straight into Megan. They started at each other and then cracked up, falling back against the wall. “I thought that was _you_ ,” he said.

“With who?” she asked.

“I dunno,” he said. “Maybe that blond guy from earlier. The generic looking one.”

“Generic,” she scoffed. “What about you? Didn’t you run off with Frank, or whatever his name was, after dinner?”

“Francis,” he corrected, and mentally kicked himself. Now she was sly and self-satisfied, giving him this look like: I knew it. “And no. I went for a walk. I saw some horses.” He’d given them grass. Their teeth were huge. He hadn’t known that, about horses. And then he had gone stargazing. “I had to take a flashlight.”

“You want to interrupt them?” she asked of the frolicking couple — probably only a couple — in their bed.

He didn’t. He was tired and he wanted to lie down, to forget that he couldn’t postpone leaving much longer. It was clear Megan would not be coming back with him. In fact he was unlikely to see her again, unless it was on a movie or television screen. If she got lucky. And he did.

“Can we find somewhere else to sleep?” he asked.

“There are a lot of beds,” she said. “We should have our pick.”

They found an empty room at the far end of the hall. It was very small, with a picture window and an old washstand still in the corner. The bathroom wasn’t so grand in here, nothing more than a toilet and a hip-bath and a cracked sink. A maid’s room, he would bet. The bed was equally unimpressive. Narrow and plain, the kind you got in a hospital.

He and Megan undressed with their backs to each other. And yet he was somehow still shocked to turn around and find her in her underwear, a black bra and panties. He occupied himself by turning down the sheets, futzing with the bedside lamp.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “You getting in or not?”

He switched off the light after she did. But she kept tossing and turning, muttering things to herself. “Alright,” he said, turning it back on. “What’s the problem?”

“I can’t sleep in a bra,” she said. “I hate it.”

He boggled. “You are not taking it off.”

“I’ll be under the sheets.”

“Megan. No.”

“It has wire in it,” she said.

He sighed, and then tugged his undershirt over his head. “Here,” he said. “Put that on so it doesn’t look like a goddamned Fellini film in here.” She was smiling at him in a funny way. He didn’t know what it meant, that cat-that-got-the-canary smile. So he lay back down, closed his eyes like a gentleman, and waited for her to finish.

She let him know she was done by dropping her bra on his face. Of course.

“She’s a comedian,” he groused, swatting it away. “Who would’ve known.”

Megan giggled. Her hair hung down into her face as she moved over him, groping for the lamp switch. She looked happy, and she looked young. It made some hollow space inside his chest ache. “It’s okay to have fun once in awhile,” she said, and then there was darkness. “Besides, you’re cute when you blush.”

It took him a long time to fall asleep, listening to her smooth breathing beside him. And it occurred to him, just before he dropped off, that she didn’t need his shirt at all. She could have put her own sweater back on.

 

 

“I hate not smoking already,” Megan said the next morning. She was laying face down on the bed, sulking. Ginsberg had already been into their old room to get washed and dressed. She hadn’t moved.

“It’ll get easier every day,” Ginsberg reassured her.

“How can you possibly know.”

“It will,” he said, tugging at her foot. She didn’t kick him, miraculously. “As the nicotine works its way out of your body.”

Megan raised her bleary head from the pillow. “You don’t know anything about this, do you?”

“No.”

She groaned and fell back down. He sat down next to her and tried to pull the pillow away but she held on with an iron grip. “I’ll run you a bath,” he said. “Then you’ll feel better.”

“And an aspirin?” she asked. “There’s some in my purse.”

“And an aspirin,” he agreed. “Want to go for a drive? Some fresh air might do you good.”

“When did you turn into Florence Nightingale?” she asked, but half an hour later she was freshly scrubbed, smelling of homemade rose oil soap, and yawning in the car seat next to him as they sped down the highway.

It was going to be his last day out. He had already decided so. So he had nothing to lose, really, spending it the way he wanted to. And then he would pack up, shake Megan’s hand, and go home.

He wasn’t looking forward to it. And he wasn’t letting himself think about how he wasn’t looking forward to it.

“Why weren’t we friends?” she asked, all of a sudden.

“What does that mean?”

Megan bit the edge of a fingernail then ran her hand through her hair. “It means,” she said. “Why did we never become friends? Back when we worked together. We’re getting along _now_.”

“It was harder,” he said. “In the office. You know it was. It’s hard — to make friends, at all, in a place like that. Not that I’m some genius for making friends anyhow. But…”

“It’s competitive,” she provided. “Yeah, I remember.”

“That’s advertising.”

“And that’s Don,” she said.

But not just Don. Yeah, he ran his shop like it was a ring of gladiators, pitting them against each other for meaningless prizes, for praise that never came or a promotion that was never going to happen. Hell, Ginsberg hadn’t even gotten a raise in the time he had worked for the agency. He’d asked once and had been told that he still needed to ‘develop’, as though he were an unfinished photograph, a blurred and useless double exposure.

He’d raged about it to Peggy. “Oh,” she had said after he was done. “And here I thought it was just me.”

Still. It wasn’t only Don. Ginsberg had allowed himself to be manipulated. He could have tried harder to make allies. He could have spoken more kindly to Peggy, let her know that he understood how difficult her job was. That she worked harder than any guy in the place. He’d thought, sometimes, that Peggy would be someone it was interesting to know. That they might have shared a similar perspective. But Don would make some snippy comment, and then they would be at each other’s throats again.

He wished he could be more like Stan, who genuinely remained uninvested in anything Don was doing. He was just the a straw boss, a figurehead, and it was best to smile and nod until he was out of the way. Stan was good at that. He knew how to pretend.

“And I didn’t help,” Megan said. “Coming in like I was just going to be part of the team when I was his wife. What the fuck was I thinking? Every interaction was so awkward. Nobody knew how to deal with me.”

He hadn’t. And he’d judged her, too. He was beginning to realize he had been wrong about a great many things, and that he owed a few apologies of his own.

“You wanted a better job,” he said. “So does everyone. I don’t blame you.”

She winced. “I didn’t marry Don for my career.”

“I know,” he said quickly. “Megan, I swear I didn’t think —”

He had been about to say _that you were a social climber_ but never got there, because at that moment the engine shuddered, made a sound like grinding gears, and started to bellow smoke under the hood. “ _Look_ ,” Megan said, pointing, and Ginsberg pulled over onto the shoulder and hit the brakes.

They scrambled out of the car. He got Megan behind him and backed up a few steps. The car didn’t explode, but neither did the smoke stop. It thinned to a bluish plume like the stroke of a feather and kept on going.

“Overheated?” she asked.

“Who can tell,” he said. “It’s rust on wheels. I can’t believe I paid for this.”

There was nowhere to go but back. The side of the road was all dry grass and sandy dirt; they kicked up puffs of it just with every movement of their feet. A cold wind started up and Megan tucked herself under his arm. Neither of them were wearing coats. They had already been walking for about an hour when the first raindrop hit.

“Anything else?” Ginsberg yelled at the sky. Megan grabbed his hand and started pulling him through a gap in a fence, across a brown-tinged field of some harvested crop. There was a barn on the horizon.

“Come on,” she said. “Any port in a storm!”

It was an old barn, slightly stooped but not decrepit. Ginsberg worried about getting kicked by a horse or a cow; he worried about getting shot by an overzealous farmer. Megan didn’t seem to worry about anything. She went right on inside, where it was warm and smelled of animals. Horses stood patiently in their stalls, a tail flicking here, a muscle in one of their long legs twitching there. They paid no attention to the interlopers.

“There’s always a hayloft,” she said. “We can wait out the storm up there.”

They located it and climbed up. The rain beat a gentle tattoo on the roof and he could smell the wet air seeping in through the wood. They sat against the wall and listened to it. For once he felt no pressure to talk. But there was one thing he had to say.

“I’m not gonna tell Don where you are,” he said.

Megan reached over and took his hand. Not tugging him along for a shared purpose, but really holding it, in an intimate and real way. The funny thing was that he couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched him with such regard. It had been years. Or maybe it had been never.

“I know,” she said.

 

 

They arrived back at the house around lunchtime, more tired than when they had left and with sore feet to boot.

“I’m going to get cleaned up,” Megan said, indicating their bedroom door with her thumb, hitchhiker-style. “Unless you wanted in there?”

“I’ll use the one we were in last night,” he said. They lingered strangely in the hall without touching, two magnets still drawn together. He felt words form on the tip of his tongue but, not knowing what they would become, refused to let them out. And so it was him who turned sharply away. The connection, whatever it had been, was broken.

 

 

Ginsberg stripped down to his underwear, intending to wash the road dust off. But the tap on the bathtub was broken so he filled the sink instead. The water was icy as a mountain spring, giving him goosebumps when he splashed his face and scrubbed it through his hair.

The door opened. “I’m in here,” he said, abrasive and irritated.

“I know,” Megan said. She had changed into a long white dress and was carrying a jug. There was steam rising from it.

She shut the door and slid a key into it. It was the old fashioned kind with only two prongs. She placed it back in her pocket and turned towards him. There was a washcloth hanging over her arm, and she’d put her hair up into a knot at the base of her neck.

“That’s always cold,” she said. “I don’t know why, the hot water just doesn’t work in here. I heated this up for you.” She dipped the washcloth in and squeezed the excess water from it. He thought she was going to hand it over or dump the contents of the jug into the sink. Instead she put the jug down on the floor and drew the cloth across his shoulders, wiping him down.

“Is this a joke?” he asked. It didn’t occur to him to kick her out. They had gotten past that point somewhere, out there on the road or lying in the hayloft.

She refreshed the washcloth. “Do you want it to be?”

This time the touch of the cloth made him shiver. There was no reason why. It was pleasantly warm. The water ran down his back, dampening the edge of his shorts. He gripped the edge of the sink. He should have told her to stop.

“No,” he said, and swallowed hard. There was no mirror in this bathroom, only a space where one might be hung. He was glad. He didn’t want to know what he looked like right now. Could he have recognized himself?

“Then I won’t make one,” she said. She squeezed the washcloth, now in the center of his chest, and he couldn’t stop looking at her hands. Her long fingers and her short nails, almost touching him but not. Now the front of his boxers was wet too, and clinging to him. It wasn’t — hiding much. “Or any excuses.”

What was the excuse for _this_?

“Do we need any?” he asked.

Megan slipped the tips of her fingers underneath his waistband. “I don’t know,” she said. “Do we?”

He turned his head far enough that he could see her face. There was a little color in her cheeks. She watched him intently, her eyes on his. He might have thought it was all a dream, a fantasy run amok, if not for the warmth of her hands on his hips. Because when had anyone ever looked at him that way?

It was like a hit of alcohol, straight to his head. Straight to other places, too. He thought about his job and why he’d come up here in the first place. And then he burned that bridge behind him.

“No,” he said, and let her pull his shorts down.

He stepped out of them feeling tense and strange, the only naked person in the room. It was a gutpunch of mingled arousal and fear. But she made a small noise of satisfaction, spreading her fingers across his back and sliding her hand up into his hair. He tilted his head back and she kissed him, on the cheek and the side of his mouth, giggling at the awkward angle.

There was nothing awkward about her hand on him, sliding between his legs and giving him a squeeze. He was already mostly hard and that took him the rest of the way.

“Stay like that,” she said. “Just like that.”

“Jesus,” he whimpered as gave him a firm stroke. “Did you think I _was_ going anywhere?”

“Hmm,” she said. “Keep your hands on the sink, so I can be sure.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” he said. His knuckles went white, but he didn’t move. “If that’s — if that’s what you want.”

She laughed again and dug her chin into his shoulder. Her warm breath tickled his ear. She sounded absolutely delighted. “Ha. I had _you_ pegged.”

“What does,” he twitched, losing his train of thought. She gave him a long stroke, a just-this-side of rough stroke that made him groan. He was trying to be quiet, he _was_ , but it was so hard. She rubbed her thumb over the head, back and forth, smearing slickness down his shaft. “What does that mean?”

“That you like bossy girls,” she said. She wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him closer. The friendly, chaste gesture was totally at odds with the way she was pumping him, twisting her hand on the downstroke, nice and tight, and his hips kept coming up to meet her, out of his control —

He was breathing hard and he knew his face was red and he tried to hide from her, ducking his head down, closing his eyes. She wouldn’t let him, pulling on his hair, telling him to look at her.

“I can’t,” he said. “Megan, I can’t —”

“You will,” she said. “Or I’ll stop.”

His eyes flew open, startled. “ _No_ ,” he said, like the word was pulled out of him physically.

“Good,” she said. “Be honest, Michael. I was to hear you. I want to hear what you think. I want to see you come apart, I want to see you _come_ -”

Her hand was wet, so wet that they made noise together, and he hadn’t thought about how messy sex would be, how immediate and dirty — and then she said she wanted to see him come —

He pulsed out over her hand with a low groan. It seemed to go on forever, and it was so _good_. So different from his own touch. He chased that beautiful sensation as far as it could go, or as far as he _thought_ it could go —

“Wow,” she said, still fisting his cock, making his eyes roll back. “You don’t do this often enough, do you? You should take care of yourself, Michael. And you should let me watch —”

“Oh my god,” he sobbed out, and — came again, maybe — he didn’t even _know_. There was an flash behind his eyelids and a brief, suspended moment of time where he was nothing but a fucked out, over sensitized body. No thinking at all. He curled over the sink, panting. He’d made a fucking mess of it.

Megan stepped around him to go wash her hands, or she tried to. He fell to his knees and got in her way, grabbing at her hips, at the hem of her skirt. “Let me,” he said. “Please?”

“Whoa,” she said, like she was startled by the offer, but then she was rolling her underwear down her legs herself, falling back against the sink with them spread. Her hands in his hair, pulling him forward.

“ _Yes_ ,” she was saying, and he hadn’t even touched her yet. “Yes, Michael, god —”

She shrieked when he got his mouth on her, his face pushed between her smooth thighs. No more talking. It was like nothing he’d ever done or experienced. She tasted like the ocean and every stroke of his tongue made her quiver. And he wasn’t thinking now, either, not about what the hell was going to happen when he got back to work and not about how she was still married, not about anything but making her feel good, making her wet, making her come. His fingers pressed into her thighs. His jaw worked until it ached. He sucked on her until she _screamed_.

And then he put her on her back, right there on the floor, and did it all over again.

“The mustache isn’t that dumb,” Megan said, afterwards. She was still mostly dressed, lying sprawled out with the strap of her dress falling down one shoulder, the skirt rucked up at knee level. All pink, like a strawberry, with her hair fanned out behind her. “I mean, it could be improved upon. Maybe with a trim, a little stubble to match.” She rolled over on her side, facing him, and rubbed her thumb across his chin.

“This is what I get from you?” he asked. “Fashion advice?”

“I’m helping you live up to your potential.”

“You’re generous like that.”

He thought it would be awkward in the aftermath, and the tile floor was a _bit_ cold, but she ran her hand down his spine and he curved into her like a comet heading home. “You know,” she said, thoughtfully, “you could probably have Francis too, before you left, if you played your cards right.”

“Don’t,” he begged, with a shiver, and tucked his face into her neck.

“Why not?”

“Because I might actually listen.”

“Overwhelmed?” she asked.

He nodded, which she felt more than saw. It felt like a layer of his skin had been peeled off without any pain. Like there was something glowing underneath. So used was he to being hunched over in a defensive posture that relaxing felt alien. It was going to take time for him to adjust.

“Want to go fool around in our room?”

“Yes,” he said, and she took him by the hand and showed him everything else they could do together.

 

 

They hugged for a long time after he said goodbye. She pulled away first, her hand on his cheek, the wind rattling the screen door and whispering through her hair. He was getting a ride into town and it was the bus from there. He had already called the rental company about their car. It was time to go.

“What are you gonna do next?” he asked her.

She smiled. “Maybe California? Maybe somewhere else. I haven’t decided. I’ll let you know. You should call me when you get back in the city.”

“You don’t have a phone.”

“Then I’ll call you,” she said.

He looked back as the truck rumbled out onto the road. She was leaning over the railing, waving. She stayed there for as long as he watched.

 

 

Ginsberg re-entered the workforce on a Thursday, nervously dressed in the best clothes he had and hoping he didn’t look as disreputable as he felt. He had a debrief with Don that lasted twenty minutes during which he could not look Don in the eye and could not stay still in his seat; it ended with Ginsberg being ejected from the room and told to steer clear for the rest of the day. Fine by him.

Peggy had gone out to get coffee and pastries, so Stan was the only one in the creative lounge when Ginsberg tried to slide past without being noticed.

“The prodigal son returns,” Stan said, throwing down his pencil. “So did you find her?”

“Uh,” said Ginsberg. The back of his neck started to prickle, like he was being watched. He scratched it. “No. I found the place —”

“So what was it, Sherlock?” Stan asked. “Had she been staying with friends? At a colony for misplaced actresses? A no-tell motel where the lost get found?” He said the last part like Humphrey Bogart, which was mixing his metaphors.

“Commune,” said Ginsberg. “Like I said, she wasn’t there. But my rental broke down, so.” He shrugged and hoped that would be the end of it.

Stan laughed and got up from his desk. “So you stayed there? Jesus, what was _that_ like? Did you feel like an anthropolo—”

Stan had come up behind Ginsberg. He had also hooked his fingers in the gap between his collar and his neck, where there was quite a large — and inexplicable — love bite.

“Holy shit,” Stan said, gleefully. “Did you get _laid_?”

Ginsberg slapped his hand down over the bruise like he was swatting a mosquito. “Mind your own business!” he yelled.

Stan started to laugh. “You did! Car broke down my ass. Hope you at least wrapped it up, buddy. All that free love can come with consequences. Like nine months later, or in the doctor’s office —”

“Don’t talk about Megan like that!”

Stan’s eyes popped open like he had been electrocuted. “ _What_ ,” he said, and then staggered back a couple of steps.

“No,” Ginsberg said, following him, panicking. “I meant —”

Stan threw a pen in his direction. “Get away from me,” he said. “Oh my god, I cannot believe how stupid you are. You’re fucking _radioactive_ right now.”

“Stan,” said Ginsberg in desperation. “He never treated her right —”

“No,” said Stan. He put his hands over his ears. “No no no. I am not hearing this, and so I can’t be responsible for it.” He headed straight for the door, and poked his head back inside in order to raise an accusing finger in Ginsberg’s direction. “And do _not_ mention this to Peggy!”

Ginsberg, alone in the room, loosened his tie and spun his chair in a half-circle. There was a pile of work on his desk but he didn’t touch it. His eyes were drawn to his phone. He crossed his fingers, waiting for it to ring.

 

 

 

 


End file.
